Keele University

KEELE UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION ON KEELE UNIVERSITY

Keele University which is officially known as the University of Keele, is a public research university situated about three miles (4.8 km) from Newcastle, Staffordshire, England.This university was granted university status by Royal Charter in the year 1962 and was originally created in  the year 1949 as the University College of North Staffordshire.

The university occupies an area of 620-acre  rural campus near the village of Keele and also has a science park and also a conference centre, making it  the biggest main campus university in the UK at that time. The university's School of Medicine comducts the clinical part of its courses through a separate campus at the Royal Stoke University Hospital. School of Nursing and Midwifery is located at the nearby Clinical Education Centre.

ACADEMIC PROFILE AND REPUTATION

The university's unique profile reflects the vision of its founders: breadth of study and community atmosphere. A modern sculpture had also been established ("The Forest of Light") at the centre of campus in Union Square that carries the motto which said  "search for truth in the company of friends".

Breadth of study was also guaranteed by the "pioneering" 4-year dual-honours degree programmes originally put forward  by Keele. The university's curriculum and activities  required every student to study two "major" subjects to honours level, as well as further "conditional" subjects, with an additional requirement where students should study at least 1 subject from each of the subject groupings of Sciences, Arts  and Social Sciences. The cross-disciplinary needs was reinforced by the Foundation Year,( an innovation which meant that for the 1st year of the 4-year programmes, all students must  study a common course of interdisciplinary "foundation studies"). Through the words of the 1st UCNS Prospectus, the programme offered:

"...a broad education system based upon an understanding of the heritage of  movements, civilisation, , conditions, and of the nature, methods and influence of the  science experimentally"

STUDENT ACTIVITY

The Keele team had won the 1968 series of University Challenge. Later the same team also made runner up for Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (1979) in the 2002 special University Challenge: Reunited.

In the year early 1980s Keele grabbed the attention of the national press as well as television news when some students had  found a 'cuddling society' and a 'mass cuddle' was filmed in the car park outside the students' union.

The post-modern sculpture based outside Keele's library was stolen by a visiting sports team, only for it to be later retrieved and securely fitted. In the year  2005 that  same statue was damaged in protest against the university's policy of fine for  their undergraduate students.

In the year 2007, Keele students were stood  responsible for getting Keele featured as a location on the UK "Here and Now" version of the traditional board game "Monopoly" . People from the UK had an chance to vote for which places should be made the board, and Keele was the highest "wild-card" location which made it on the top. It even finished top  on the board than London, and took the place of "Fleet Street" in the game. Later that year, students from Keele won a competition hosted by O2 via Facebook known as "The battle for the UK's favourite university" where they scored  over 172,000 points by uploading photos, videos and making wall posts on the group. The prize for winning the competition was a party at their students' union, hosted by O2.